Romantic Magazines and Metropolitan Literary Culture

The years between 1815 and 1825 formed a period of cultural flux. Readers and writers were newly and urgently conscious of the changes wrought in the literary world by the massive expansion of the print market. For some, this was a catastrophe; for others, an opportunity. In the same period, the literary magazine became a publishing phenomenon. These magazines, more than any other literary form, seized the commercial and creative moment. They recognized their part in a culture which was increasingly dividing 'literary' texts from a commercial, ephemeral context. Magazines, unavoidably tied to the commercial market yet aspirant towards a higher status, were ideally placed to reflect a culture that was metropolitan in its size, heterogeneity, and in its capacity to confound those who would make clear distinctions. The literary magazine gives us the key to a culture which was as bewildering as it was exhilarating.